ID Number: 160026059
Tutorial Name and Code: Mind and World PY1010
Clotilde Torregrossa
Does free will require the ability to do otherwise?
I hereby declare that the attached piece of written work is my own work and that I have not reproduced, without acknowledgment, the work of another.
In this essay I will refute the notion that the type of free will worth wanting, or the kind that grants us moral responsibility, is not incumbent upon an ability to do otherwise. To do so, I will first summarize what proponents of this theory, or the Principal of Alternative Possibilities, are convinced of, and why they feel it is true. Then, I will endeavor to prove one of this theory 's main premises, that is, that an ability to do do other …show more content…
As previously stated, I will start by summarizing what people who subscribe to the principle of alternate possibilities believe. First among their premises is one that asserts free will as entailing moral responsibility. Under this view, moral agents can be held responsible for their actions insofar as they act on their own volition. As Philosopher David Hume puts it “Liberty…can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will… this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to everyone who is not a prisoner and in chains. Hre, then, is no subject of dispute,” (Hume, 61). In this passage, Hume reinforces the notion that free will is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. Without free will, human being might …show more content…
In other words, moral agents are only held morally accountable for a given action if, from an array of possible choices, they choose the morally wrong one. Intuitively, it appears as though actions inspired through coercive force must, by definition, absolve one of the blame we would otherwise assign to them. Coercive threat seems to intuitively rule out any possibility of placing moral responsibility on the moral agent who was coerced into performing a given action. After all, if someone committed an action for which there existed no available alternatives, then how could we hold him morally
Tutorial Name and Code: Mind and World PY1010
Clotilde Torregrossa
Does free will require the ability to do otherwise?
I hereby declare that the attached piece of written work is my own work and that I have not reproduced, without acknowledgment, the work of another.
In this essay I will refute the notion that the type of free will worth wanting, or the kind that grants us moral responsibility, is not incumbent upon an ability to do otherwise. To do so, I will first summarize what proponents of this theory, or the Principal of Alternative Possibilities, are convinced of, and why they feel it is true. Then, I will endeavor to prove one of this theory 's main premises, that is, that an ability to do do other …show more content…
As previously stated, I will start by summarizing what people who subscribe to the principle of alternate possibilities believe. First among their premises is one that asserts free will as entailing moral responsibility. Under this view, moral agents can be held responsible for their actions insofar as they act on their own volition. As Philosopher David Hume puts it “Liberty…can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will… this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to everyone who is not a prisoner and in chains. Hre, then, is no subject of dispute,” (Hume, 61). In this passage, Hume reinforces the notion that free will is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. Without free will, human being might …show more content…
In other words, moral agents are only held morally accountable for a given action if, from an array of possible choices, they choose the morally wrong one. Intuitively, it appears as though actions inspired through coercive force must, by definition, absolve one of the blame we would otherwise assign to them. Coercive threat seems to intuitively rule out any possibility of placing moral responsibility on the moral agent who was coerced into performing a given action. After all, if someone committed an action for which there existed no available alternatives, then how could we hold him morally